TUESDAY'S WORDS

One last pic of beautiful California flowers from this week... I'm so ready for spring!

This week, I have been in California with Balle, the Business Alliance of Local Living Economies, to design the next iteration of their fellowship program which brings together those who are working in localism across the country. The folks of the fellowship are brought together as they dream up, work for, and make a new economy happen.

It’s really interesting - and different - work for me. And this week was a chance for those of us who are facilitating the fellowship to come together and share our work with each other as we design the next fellowship curriculum. Specifically, Gibran Rivera and I were asked to share some of what we’ve learned about systems change work and equity.

(If you don’t know Gibran, you should! He is one of my new favorite people/thinkers/co-conspirators. Check out his website.)

After some really good conversation trying to figure out how to simplify something so large into about an hour of teaching and conversation, Gibran and I decide to focus our time on four key learnings from our work. Here’s my summary of what we shared with the group: ​

All levels, All the time - We have to consider the various levels of intervention and impact as we make strategic choices: personal, interpersonal, organizational, community/institutional, structural. As we think about issues of equity, all of these levels intersect and impact each other. Often, we want to focus our work on one of the two ends of the spectrum - either the personal piece OR the the structural piece. But that is insufficient as issues of equity require that we deal with what’s happening for us internally, in our relationships, in the places we work, in the institutions we engage with, and in the underlying structures that support discrimination and oppression. We can choose where to strategically intervene, but we make a mistake if we are not considering the other levels as well.

Dental Hygiene and Equity - Gibran brought in this great idea from Jay Smooth. When we are working with issues of equity and oppression, we often want to have a one time intervention (say a root canal or a tonsillectomy) that solves the issue, but the work is often more akin to brushing your teeth or flossing. You gotta keep it up. You gotta work with it daily. Systems change efforts that don’t consistently and intentionally work with equity and justice are likely to replicate oppressive structures.

Implicit Bias - We talked about how we are (mostly) in an age where we are working in our systems change efforts with really well meaning people, but the impact of implicit bias can derail these efforts. It can make issues of oppression and equity challenging to identify as we may not be dealing with overt, easily identifiable issues of hatred or violence. Our multi-stakeholder groups need to consider how to address external issues of power and dominance, yes, but also the implicit bias we all carry within ourselves.

Work at the Center - It is often only through getting to the actual work of systems change, that we are able to determine together how we will address issues of power and equity. Many times we spend a lot of time trying to come to some agreement or path to follow around issues of equity and justice before we start working, but there is another option. We can simply get started with the work, and figure out how we will hold equity and justice as the tasks before us and the strategies we engage in demand. Doing the work allows us to make our ideals manifest. It is the place where we can stop talking about how we will enact justice and begin to make it so.

I had a great time coming up with these four things with Gibran. It’s absolutely not a comprehensive list, and it doesn’t cover so many of the nuances of this work, but it was really fun to boil down some of what I’ve learned into a few lessons. Let me know what you think!

Thanks, Tim! I think dental hygiene is a really helpful metaphor, for sure. It has me thinking on: what are the simple questions we can ask ourselves regularly to attend to this? Would love to do some thinking with you on this! And it is totally akin to relationships as resolution though I hadn't quite thought of it that way.

Go you two! Gibran is another of my favorite folks--married to Samantha Tan, an early World Cafe pioneer and founding host of Cafe Asia.

I love your four learnings, Tuesday, not only the dental hygiene metaphor (lovely, thanks Gibran!), but also Working at the Center --ie get started on what's in front of you and keep your intentions clear re: justice and equity in every aspect of the work as you go.

Thanks, Juanita! Isn't it amazing how we really are just one small degree away from each other? I was lucky enough to work with Samantha on the federal strategic plan on homelessness cafes, and it was really great to get to know Gibran last week.

And I really appreciate your support of Work at the Center - it feels a little edgy, especially in justice circles where we are so committed to our ideals that we can sometimes miss the opportunities to do good work together. Nothing simple in it, but it feels important.

Love right back to you! xo

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Chris Chapman

2/23/2016 08:28:35 am

I really like all this, Tuesday. Thank you so much for such clarity.

I am sure it is not what you meant, but it occurs to me that tooth brushing and root canal treatment are not mutually exclusive options. It also occurs to me that root canal treatment is best left to experts and if we over-focus on the need for such interventions, then we are discounting the day to day role of the rest of us, which might just feel a very attractive thing to do.

And you are absolutely right - they are not mutually exclusive. Both may be needed at different times. I think what's appealing to me about the dental hygiene model is that it doesn't allow us to have "one conversation" or "one training" or "one expert" about equity and think we have addressed the issues sufficiently. It must be ongoing, and we have to try different strategies.

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TUESDAY'S WORDS

This blog is a place where I share what I'm doing out in the world, reflect on what I'm learning, and also capture some of my random thoughts. I'd love these blogs to start new conversations. Please join me in the comments or send me an email about what these posts bring up​for you!

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"You want to know how we can all be together better? Tuesday Ryan-Hart has devoted her life to exploring this question. She is fearless in inviting people to turn toward one another on behalf of what matters most. And she does this with kindness, compassion and conviction. Whenever I'm asked to recommend someone to design and facilitate strategic change work—particularly around topics like race, class and economic justice—I always recommend Tuesday. Plus, she's fun as hell!~Deborah Frieze, Boston ​ Impact Initiative